I canned about 12 pints of heirloom tomatoes, and 12 half pints of blueberry raspberry jam. I still need to make some apple butter to can and I am going to cook down some more heirloom tomatoes to make tomato sauce to can tonight.

I haven't done too much this year so far, but I have finished up strawberry rhubarb jam, raspberry jam, bakeapple/cloudberry (an orange berry that looks like a raspberry) jam, and rhubarb pickles/relish. Hopefully I will get to some apple butter or jelly soon.

So far i've canned about 8 jars of pickles from the heirloom cucumbers in the garden, and a few small jars of tomato sauce from the tomatoes in the garden, its a mix of the different heirloom varieities that I have.

From the dumpster i have canned about 12 jars of pickles, 6 plum jams, 20 or so tomato sauces, and mandrin oranges.

I've canned a ton of tomatoes this year... Plain ol tomatoes, tomatoe sauce for pasta, and roasted tomatoes with salt and olive oil.

How do you can pumpkin, little bear??? I want that!

I've never done it! I will let you know. My friend grew a ton of pumpkin so we decided we should can it

I can't wait to hear about it!Last year my mom put out a message on free cycle, about a week after Halloween, asking for people's pumpkins. We cooked and froze so much pumpkin, until our freezers were full. But if we could can it, we could go on forever!

Thanks to the PPK expert assistance in my Ballymaloe Tomato Chutney thread, I've uncoded my Irish Grandmother's stack of old cookbooks/recipes (1 cup is 227 ml and not 250 ml) and a major canning adventure has begun.

So far this year we've done 20 pints of strawberry jam, 6 pints of blueberry jam, 10 quarts of zesty zucchini relish, 4 quarts of sweet mustard pickles, 5 pints of beets, and 5 pints of salsa.I'm hoping to do lots more mustard pickles this week when the last of the cucumbers get a bit bigger, and loads more salsa as the tomatoes all rippen. I never thought to do apple butter.... hmmmm.... I think I might do some. Anyone have a good recipe?

oooo, and I found a bog not far from my house that has loads of cranberries growing all around it, so I think i'll do some cranberry chutney again this year. I'm a big fan of canning anything I can get for free/grow myself/pick fairly cheap.

How about a recipe swap, Padraigin?? I would LOVE to see your pickle and chutney recipes.... i do remember seeing the thread but not the final recipe.

Happy to share ....

Oops - I thought I had posted an update on the Ballymaloe Tomato Chutney. I must be PPKing in my dreams. Will post a follow-up in that original thread; the chuntney turned out fabulous - sort of like a tomato jam. The recipe may be similar to the Irish Ballymaloe Relish currently sold. I've pm'd Torque the recipe and if any one else would like it, please pm me.

Here's Grandma's cucumber-onion pickles - they are a type of mustard pickle.

There are hand written notes in the recipe that recommend smaller cucumbers no bigger than 6 inches, so that there are not a lot of big seeds.

The night before pickling, process cucumbers and onions. Peel and trim the vegetables and chop into similar sized ½ inch pieces. Put vegetables in a large crock and sprinkle 2 heaping tbsp of pickling salt over them. Stir a few times before going to bed and leave them overnight on the counter.

In the morning, carefully rinse and drain the salted vegetables. Make sure they are well drained or the pickles will be watery.

Prepare the pickling liquid. Put dry ingredients in large cooking pot and mix well to combine. Add vinegar. Once it comes up to a gentle simmer, let it simmer for 5 minutes. Add the vegetables and simmer for another 5 minutes. Put up in sterilized pickling jars. Makes 4 pints.

I canned 3 1/2 pints of tomato jam, 5 pints of strawberry jam that I split with my roommate, and 9 pints of crushed tomatoes. I also have some pickles that I'm fermenting in a crock and some tomato sauce and apple sauce that I'm freezing. The tomato jam is amazing! I used this recipe: http://www.foodinjars.com/2010/09/tomato-jam/

This thread inspired me to search for different recipes that I wouldn't have thought to do. I found a pretty cool website that had lots of great ideas (dandilion jelly? I have loads of dandilions, that's for sure), and some gross ones. Canned/pickled meat? Blech.

The apple butter is so good and we've been going through it quickly. I think I"m going to have to make another batch soon. This time, maybe mixing apples & pears. I want to can some more suff but haven't decided what's next.

i have read that canning pumpkin is not recommended due to the low acid level and the density of purreed pumpkin. I wanted to do that last year but could not find a recipe, even in my pressure canner cookbook. but frozen cooked pumpkin is terrific. i highly recomend measuring it out into amounts that match your favorite recipes. i went all urban homsteader this year and canned asparagus, rhubarb, plums, peaches, pickled peaches, peach butter, green and red salsa, bread and butter pickles, dilly beans, dill pickles, applesauce and strawberry, blueberry, raspberry,currant, blackberry and grape jams. i still need to do tomatoes so i'll be picking those up this weekend. there are only two of us in the house, too. canning gets kind of obsessive once you get the hang of it.

I canned salsa and crushed tomatoes in the middle of the summer. I wanted to can so much more but could never afford more ingredients. Every paycheck something came up but I might still try to do some apple pie fillings before the holidays start.

_________________I am a stranger, learning to love the strangers around me― June Jordan